It's a Guy Thing

I work next door to a great guy I met working at the temple. He is a CPA and we have been working together for 2 years now. We have a great time together because he used to swim for Utah at he same time I swam for BYU. So we have a built in rivalry, but are civilized about it – as much as you can be civilized when it comes to BYU and Utah football.

Well over the last two weeks the rivalry has intensified exponentially. Kevin started working with a trainer to prepare for a half marathon at Disney World. He was having so much fun with the trainer I decided mom and I would go to the same trainer and started a month ago

.

For one exercise she has us do the “Plank” and she timed Kevin one morning and he did a 1:00. So she had me do it and I did it for 1:15. Not to be outdone, Kevin turns in a 1:56 hurting and shaking. It was up to me to surpass the record and I did 2:05 the next week. Now the game was really on and Kevin blew us all away when he did 3:04 the following week. I’m totally sucked into this one-up-manship game now especially since he and I go back and forth about BYU vs Utah. I had several days to prepare and worked on my toe techniques as well as head positioning to maximize the time.

Friday was the day and I even wore my BYU T-shirt for good luck, said my prayers, and loosened up well for the ultimate Plank. Everything was ready and I launched my position. Things lined up well, I protected my head, sailed through the first minute, but then started shaking. NO! Not this early, it’s only been 1:30, surely my BYU toned body is better than a U of U graduate. Hang in there, Alright we cleared 2:00 and I can live with the shaking and pain through out my back for a minute. At 2:30 I thought this is so stupid and childish, but hang in there for at least 3 mins. At 3:00 my thoughts cleared and I could stretch this out a few more seconds…..yes, I passed 3:05 and on to 3:10 and that was it. I will never ever do that again.

I said that until Kevin did 3:31 Saturday morning, now I have until Monday to get prepared.

Wild Dive

It was a wild dive at the aquarium this week. I was in the Sea of Cortez exhibit; now called Under the Sea. The aquarium has hired a number of curvaceous young ladies who wear a skimpy top, a mono-fin, and some stretchy fabric to cover their legs and they look like mermaids. They do their hair is a fun shape and fill the tank with Ariel look alikes. In addition to those extra bodies they have a couple of new huge (6 ft.) rays and a shove nose shark that require hand feeding. It is a big pool but with 3 divers, a 300 lbs grouper, 2 large nurse sharks, 4 adult moray eels and hundreds of other fish the place can get a little crowded.

The guy I was diving with wanted to feed the rays and the shovel nose shark which can be tricky. They were doing a cleanse last week and so the animals hadn’t been fed for a week and were really hungry and they can all be very aggressive when they’re hungry. He is supposed to kneel down and have the animals come to him and the other diver and I have PVC pipe to push away the nurse shark and other animals. But it didn’t work that way. He never got to kneel down before the rays were all over him going after the food (squids). They were even attacking the clear canister holding the food. We were keeping the nurse sharks away but he couldn’t handle the rays.

All of a sudden he thrusts the food into my hand and grabs my PVC pipe and traded places with me. In an instant I have 4 rays and a shovel nose shark circling and bumping into me wanting to be fed. I’m trying to grab a squid with one hand and push away a slimy floppy ray with the other hand and duck my head from getting bit. I loved the challenge until one of the rays decided to chomp down on my thigh. Man that hurt and I couldn’t shake him off. Just then the nurse shark moved in to grab my squid and had to be pushed away. The shovel nose grabbed at my hand with the food in it and got a piece of my fingers. I didn’t have any chain mail because I didn’t start out feeding so I felt the sting. Then the lady diver accidently kicked me in the head with her flipper trying to man handle the nurse shark. But the ray let go of my leg….I don’t think neoprene rubber tastes all that good, and things settled down for the rest of the feeding. I love all the action.

The exhibit also had just brought in 6 new baby moray eels and they lived on the eel wall. Feeding them was also a ball. They were spotted and green and cute and cuddly. Well maybe not cuddly. But I had a great time hand feeding the babies and avoided getting bit as they slithered and snapped their jaws to grab the tiny minnows. It took a long time to do the feeding but it was a relaxing calming experience after the rays. But holding and feeding Charlie is still way better.

Birthday in the Mountains

Mom and I wore ourselves out this weekend as we celebrated mine and the country's birthday in the mountains around Breckenridge. This must be the bicycle capitol of the world. Every other car had either a full or empty bike rack. So we joined right in and on my birthday we went to the required Art Festival had lunch at a sidewalk cafe then went biking. We tackled Dillon Lake and biked all the way around, a total of 26 miles. Mom was incredible, tackling the whole thing with a healing broken arm and without a complaint - very impressive.
We were a little sore so on the country's birthday we watched the required small town 4th of July parade and then we went hiking into fields of wild flowers and amazing mountain vistas. When we got home we had a dinner of brats, watermelon, and potato salad. It was a perfect weekend.

Back to School

I took the opportunity to travel back to some of my deep dark roots over the weekend and came away with some very interesting thoughts. I started the trip by flying to Seattle and spending the night with Paulette. My sister and I talked late into the night and had a great time and as we toured around her yard the next day I started getting nostalgic for the Pacific Northwest. Here were all these incredibly beautiful massive evergreen trees, lush green foliage, bright flowers, driftwood from the salt water, and the views of the sound. I asked Paulette why didn’t I live here anymore – it is gorgeous. She asked me to point out the sun and I looked up and couldn’t see anything but a cloudy grey sky and realized that was why we lived in Colorado. I do like the sun.

I drove up to an old party town from high school days called Chilliwack, BC and met up with Elder Sallenbach who was a missionary who recently had lived in our basement and finished his mission. He hadn’t wasted any time moving on with his life as he was engaged within three months of his return and scheduled to marry in two weeks. I met his fiancée Katie and she is a kick and will keep Bach Bach in line. We had time to even visit Cultus Lake, a site of a few high school hi jinks better left forgotten. I enjoyed meeting the parents and was able to remember enough embarrassing stories and give some spicy newlywed advice that I’m sure Brandon was happy to see me leave the next day.

I had the day to explore Vancouver and headed straight for the aquarium. I wanted to see whales and dolphins and really enjoyed visiting another aquarium. Plus I had enough time to swing by Simon Fraser University.

This visit really hit me hard. Since the time I was in the 8th grade until my senior year in high school I used to practice with the SFU swim team and became great friends with the coach Paul Savage. He was an American like myself and promised me a juicy scholarship when I was ready to go to college. I dreamed of swimming for SFU for several years and that bubble burst mid summer after my senior year of high school. Paul Savage said he wanted to recruit a breaststroker out of Montreal and needed the housing portion of my scholarship money. He said I could live at home since I lived so close. I owed Savage a lot since he let me swim there for free and get excellent coaching, but I couldn’t stand the thought of living one more day than I had to with my dad. I needed that money to move out. Savage and my dad were good friends and I always wondered if my dad had arranged for me to lose that part of the scholarship money so I would be forced to live at home.
I was pretty dejected that summer and told many of my friends of my frustration. One of my swimming buddies, Karen James, listened and remembered my anguish and changed my life. She was traveling in Scotland and while there ran into, Bob Stoddart, another swimmer from Canada who swam for BYU. During their conversation my name came up as someone who wanted to consider other schools. Bob told her that BYU was looking for a backstroker and if I could swim backstroke BYU might be interested. Karen knew that backstroke was my best stroke and so something possessed her to write me a postcard and tell me to check into BYU.

That postcard arrived in August 1970 and school started in less than a month. The timing would be razor thin but I called the coach at BYU and he said if we moved fast then I could start school in the fall and have a scholarship including housing.

The rest of the story is for another time, but here were my thoughts as I revisited the swimming pool at SFU. The pool is now called the Margaret and Paul Savage Memorial Pool. The trophy case went into great detail of Coach Savage’s great record at SFU earning his first national championship in 1972. Had I gone to SFU, my times would have been star quality, and I would have been on a national championship team. But as a senior in high school I was definitely headed in the wrong direction. I had earned a police record, was drinking heavily, taking drugs, and partying. I had no moral compass and was completely sucked into worldly and wicked ways. Going to SFU would only have accelerated my downward spiral, but for a simple postcard my life would have crashed.

I stood in the natatorium and reflected on the thin chance that came together that brought me to BYU instead of SFU. One swimming buddy of mine at the time put the choice to me this way – “Go to SFU and find drugs and sex – Go to BYU and find God; your choice.” It hit me so hard at how close I came to missing the opportunity to attend BYU and find the life I’m now able to live. I’m so grateful that I was given the chance to make that choice and how stunning it would have been if I had messed up and remained in BC. I’m so blessed.
I attended the reunion and met with old friends, swapped stories, missed those that weren’t there, saw an old girl friend that looked 67, and generally had a good time. One girl told me that I had the most hair and smallest stomach of any other guy there. That, made the trip all worthwhile. I looked around and saw for the most part happy people, but so many were missing because of their injured lives and they were a tad embarrassed about multiple divorces, alcohol addictions, wayward kids, or crappy jobs. How easy it would have been to end up with a tangled life, but because of a simple postcard followed by a few good decisions I have been blessed with a full and rich life beyond measure. The trip really helped me appreciate good opportunities and better decisions.

Happy Father's Day

We did something yesterday that we hadn’t ever done in the nearly 20 years we have lived in Colorado. We went to the Renaissance Faire in Larkspur and it was a blast. We should have done it all along. It was like an old English/French/Italian/Celtic/Dudgeons and Dragons village from 300 or 500 or 800 years ago. Before you enter the Faire there is a shop where you can rent costumes for the days in the ‘village”. About 1/3 of the guests were in costume and they were fun, colorful, and a little flirtatious with some of the women’s bodices. There were lots of entertaining jugglers, singers, musicians and acrobats performing on several live stage shows. The food selection ranged from hard boiled Scottish Eggs, to Thai coconut crusted Green Beans, to “Steak on a Stake”, and Deep fried ice cream. We went through a lot of cash very quickly tasting the fun food. They even had Mac and Cheese on a stick.

It was a perfect day weather wise and we went with another couple who were particularly fun. Dave, the husband, is a couple years older than me but a true child at heart. All day he was saying things like, “Oh, there’s a Maze, let’s go!”; “Look at these cool wooden swords, I want one.”; “Let’s ride the camels and the elephants.”; “I just got to have some of those fries.”; “Are we going to see the jousting?”; and “This is the best funnel cake with ice cream and strawberries I have ever eaten.” He made it so fun because of his childlike enthusiasm.

I have been thinking about my dad a lot lately for two reasons: I’m going back to Canada for my 40^th High School Reunion next weekend, and it is Father’s Day. With the new Vancouver temple having just opened last month I thought it would be cool to do my dad’s endowment in that temple. I really had to ask myself if I was ready to forgive and move on from the torturous relationship we had, and I’ve concluded that I’m ready. I just don’t feel the poison I used to about him. His toxic life style was sad and destructive for him and his family but if I dwell on his noxious behavior I’m held back.

I have finally made peace with him. I can see his weaknesses and his strengths and the scale is not equal, but one thing I have learned over the past 6 years is that only the Savior is perfect. We are all flawed and fall way short of the ideal. It is for God to judge and for us to try to forgive the damages and the hurts. If we don’t; we are the ones that suffer. All my anger towards my father doesn’t hurt or repay him it just diminishes my soul and standing before my Heavenly Father. And I need all the help I can get.

Ta'alofa Lava

Every once and a while, out of the blue, a long standing prayer gets answered. It is one of life’s tender mercies and brings with it unexpected blessings and strengthens faith. For almost two years now since the missionaries started living here, during every transfer I have requested a trade in for a Samoan elder. Over time and realizing that there are only two Samoans in the mission I had given up my hope of swapping silly Samoan songs with a native speaker and having someone verify that the gibberish I often spoke when I tried to communicate with an Hispanic face in a foreign country was real. But the Lord has listened and decided to bless our home with a genuine Samoan elder.

I know he is a real Samoan because he recognized my tapa cloth wall hanging, loves to sleep in, likes all kinds of physical activity, laughs at my silly jokes and stories, likes to tease his companion, and cooked his companion a dinner of canned mackerel with onion and rice. It filled the house with that unique fish smell for a couple of days and I thought I was back in the Islands.

Now I’m embarrassed with my weak language skills and fumble through a mix of Samoan and English to tell a story but it is so fun to have a “Faifeautala’i” in our home. He has been so kind to play along that he understands my diminished word selection and talks very slowly with me. I get a few of his words and it sends my mind back to sweaty hot days, walking dusty roads, fighting off mosquitoes and bugs, eating fish heads, and teaching the gospel to the most beautiful faith filled people on earth. The Lord must love me a little to bless my life with this spot of fun and joyful memories.
Thank you for answered prayers. Tofa Soifua.

The Branson Experience

If getting there is half the fun then our trip to Branson was a blast, because the trip there was an experience. Surprise, surprise we got a bit of a late start and decided to have Dave drop us off at the terminal while we went to park the car. I felt lousy – my heart was fribulating – and mom had a broken arm from her biking accident and Danica was carrying Charlie. Mom and I honestly tried to corral Lily and Jensen who were super excited to be on a traveling adventure. They wanted to explore everywhere as long as it was in different directions and they could leave their bags behind. Unless of course one touched the other’s bag then there would be howls of protest.
The airport was really crowded and the security line was at least 30 mins. We were stressing - Dave was delayed parking the car. Our little explorer Lily had found that under the hand rail for the moving sidewalk was this fun black grease that worked like finger paint and tasted good. And Jensen was crawling, climbing, and crowding around all the people. Fodder wing Tracy and I took all three kids through security so Danica could wait for Dave with his boarding pass. In the midst of supreme confusion of the crowd at security as we were removing shoes and unpacking toiletries and the lap top; Lily bit Jensen on the arm he let out a scream that nearly set off other alarms. Jensen ran off to find Danica, the security guard wanted Tracy to open Charlie’s bottle which she couldn’t because of her arm, and Lily started crying – I wanted to cry too, but a few minutes later we some how passed through the pandemonium and limped our way to the gate where we met with Dave and Danica and thankfully a flight that was delayed by 45 minutes.
The hour flight felt like to took three hours with a couple of delays, but we arrived in Kansas City and had a rather unpleasant experience renting a van. They gave us a 5 passenger sedan for 7 people and then wanted to argue about it. Finally a nice lady helped the guy read the rental agreement and we got our van. Four hours later we were arrived in Branson at 4 am. I was glad to have that half of our fun done.
Celeste arrived the next day to added two more children, so we were 6 adults and 5 children all 4 and under – it was almost even odds with the battle favoring the kids. I don’t really mean that cuz I love my grandchildren and we had a great time with them at the pool, miniature golfing, at Silver Dollar City, at restaurants and at the fish hatchery. The adults loved the Beatles show, the second miniature golfing game, the rising table at McFarland’s, shopping at Branson Landing, laser tag, go carts, water fights at Silver Dollar City, and nap time.
It was great fun to be with family, make memories and remember the really important things in life. It is spending time, and talking, and planning, and cooking, and eating, and hanging, and playing, and swimming, and watching movies, and eating caramel popcorn deserts, and in general enjoying each other’s company. Travel may not be smooth, and the costs may be steep, and the ear drums may suffer a little but it is so worth it to be with family…..a little slice of heaven.